《神州交流》Chinese Cross Currents

Foreword:
The Rural Majority:
No More Silence on the Land

Vol. 3, No. 3, July-Sept. 2006

For the third consecutive year since 2004, the development of the countryside, the condition of the farmers and, more generally, agriculture have attracted the attention of the central government of China. They have provided the material for what is referred to as the No. 1 Document, jointly issued at the beginning of the year by the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council. Moreover, in 2006, “building a new socialist countryside” (jianshe shehui zhuyi xin nongcun) has been coined as the “foremost task” of the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010). The goal is to resolve the “three problems of agriculture” (san nong wenti), the intertwined issues of agriculture (nongye), farmers (nongmin) and villages (nongcun). To put it simply, rural China has become once again a priority on the central authorities' agenda. Why is that?

Figures speak for themselves. Despite its decline in importance, agriculture still holds a significant place in China's economy and society: it accounts for almost 15% of GDP and above 40% of employment. Although the rural population as a proportion of the total population is falling, it still remains high at 60%, all in all 800 million individuals. The whole country is in debt to the countryside since, in the 1980s, rural areas provided two major catalysts in the development of the economy. The first one occurred in the early 1980s, when the commune system was replaced by the household production responsibility system, and individual farmers were thus allowed to lease their land from the collectives. The second began in the late 1980s with the growth of rural industries, the so-called township and village enterprises (xiangzhen qiye).

However, rural China is today experiencing a deep and far reaching crisis. The income gap is irremediably widening between urban and rural China: even though real rural incomes grew by 6.8% in 2004 (the highest rate since 1996), and in 2005 by 6.2%, urban incomes went up by 9.6% in 2005 alone. Access to education and simple health care has again become an issue. Pensions and other social benefits provided in urban areas are largely unavailable in rural China. Even if the abolition of rural taxes in 2004 has been an effective means to fight tax abuses perpetuated by local authorities, a dysfunctional system of fiscal transfers has made the funding of basic public services even more difficult for local authorities. An alternative way of financing has been found in the only commodity worth being traded—the land—, sometimes legally but more often than not fraudulently when it comes to ownership.

Resentment is growing in China's villages. It is not only reported in independent inquiries and surveys conducted by community-conscious Chinese scholars and lawyers, but also by the central authorities themselves. According to a Xinhua dispatch dated September 2nd 2006, the Ministry of Public Security counted “87,000 protests, riots and other ‘mass incidents' related to land loss” in 2005, “up 6.6% from 2004 and 50% from 2003”. Premier Wen Jiabao himself warned, in early 2006, that “illegal seizures of land [were] sparking mass incidents in the countryside”, and added: “We absolutely cannot commit a historic error over land problems.”

In order to address the required legal and policy reforms, we have asked Chinese scholars to discuss some of these issues, especially those pertaining to land ownership, taxes and fiscal transfers, and the paths to encourage new economic activities. For Wen Tiejun, the economist known for coining the formula san nong wenti , the allocation of land and the way it is being taken care of are of utmost importance; yet the actual system of a 30-year right of use for rural land does not necessarily have to be abolished in favour of fully-fledged privatisation. Zhou Feizhou offers a vivid description of the abolition of rural taxes and its consequences. Rural millionaire turned activist Sun Dawu makes a point in pushing for a new law that would encourage the setting up of new businesses in rural areas, and again put the people and their occupations at the heart of the matter. This is precisely, although it takes place in another setting, the message conveyed by Francis D'Souza when he describes the way his “poverty alleviation centre” has catered for the deprived and marginalised families in rural Karnataka, India: it's the people who matter.

Chinese peasants, to whom Mao's Party owes its coming to power in 1949, have become once again vocal. Their discontent has obviously been heard and taken seriously by the highest authorities. Let's hope that they will still be listened to when the time finally comes to implement appropriate solutions.

Yves Camus, Director

Eric Sautedé, Chief Editor